Gemsigns

Book 1: ®Evolution

by Stephanie Saulter

Genres: Science Fiction; Dystopian; Genetic Engineering

Synopsis

They were created to save humanity. Now they must fight to save themselves. For years the human race was under attack from a deadly Syndrome, but when a cure was found - in the form of genetically engineered human beings, Gems - the line between survival and ethics was radically altered. Now the Gems are fighting for their freedom, from the oppression of the companies that created them, and against the Norms who see them as slaves. And a conference at which Dr Eli Walker has been commissioned to present his findings on the Gems is the key to that freedom. But with the Gemtech companies fighting to keep the Gems enslaved, and the horrifying godgangs determined to rid the earth of these 'unholy' creations, the Gems are up against forces that may just be too powerful to oppose.

Release date: March 28, 2013

Publisher: Jo Fletcher Books

Print pages: 400

Sample

When describing a circle one begins anywhere. Each point precedes and succeeds with no greater or less meaning; the tale they tell remains unvaried. There is neither cause nor consequence, for every moment is both. It is curious the resignation with which we declare this pattern in human affairs, and the virtue with which we credit it in nature.

But beware illusions born of too still and centred a perspective. A mere tilt of the head, a sideways step – and history unspools. The triumphs and tragedies, victories and defeats, dark and golden ages come and go and come again, each shaped by the revolution of which it is the final coordinate, shaping that for which it is the first. No two moments are exactly the same, for travelling the circuit conveys a momentum that displaces the point of return from the point of departure. Life proceeds in a spiral, pushing outward and forward, expanding and accelerating as the players whirl through their evolutions, building a vortex.

Be careful. Stand in the middle and the maelstrom will pull you in.

But you must pick the right moment to join the dance. There are events which ripple down the helix, maiming and moulding all the moments that follow. These are worth understanding.

Beginnings are important.

* * *

So our story begins, perhaps, with Dr Eli Walker, tasked with the mapping of divisions, accosted, accused and propositioned. Insulted, as he would have it, but then Dr Walker is a principled man. To himself he is a player in a morality tale, unravelling dissimulations. He knows, or thinks he knows, what the choices are. His own righteousness is in no doubt. He has the conviction of a man who fights on the side of angels.

* * *

But Dr Walker is a reactor to a reality, the effect of a cause. We might better begin with Gaela Provis Bel’Natur, struggling with corollaries as she makes her way across the city. They will lead her to a treasure beyond imagining, the discarded relic of a dismayed hegemony. Does our story flow from what she finds, or from the manner of her finding it? She could not tell you. Gaela is the very embodiment of unintended consequences. It is her boon and her doom, her grace and her gall. It exhausts her. Gaela could tell Eli a thing or two about the hard grind of duality. She would give a lot for a middle ground, some quiet grey in which to rest, and she may find it, for a while. But not for long. She has convictions of her own.

* * *

So Gaela, maybe Gaela is the starting point. Or maybe not. All beginnings are endings, after all, so perhaps we should commence with a departure. A long time ago, in a forest, a deep dark wood as befits a fairytale. A young girl, not much beyond childhood, flees between towering trunks, bearing an impossible burden, running for her life. She has emerged from earth and the great silent spaces beneath the cathedral of trees frighten her. She pauses for breath, rests her hand against rough bark. She has never felt anything like it.

A moth flutters away from her fingers, brown-grey and mottled and invisible until it moves, finding a safer vantage higher up. The girl is transfixed. She is reaching up towards it, hoping to see it fly again, when a whisper of sound reaches her, sighing on a breeze through the forest. For a moment she has almost forgotten the pursuit. She wishes she shared the moth’s gift of camouflage, or the possibility of escape in the trees. But even if she were to ascend into the canopy she knows they would find her, track her, burn the forest to retrieve or destroy her. There are men and dogs on her trail, and darker things as well. So she turns, slips away up the slope, running as fast as she can, making for the open ground she knows is there.

Knows? She does not know. She has seen a map. They did not think she would understand it and so did not trouble to hide it from her. She understands only too well that it may be old. The place she is making for may have changed. The trees may stop too soon, or not at all. There may be people, and not the ones she hopes to find. She had very little time, and has judged this her best chance. There is nothing to do now except struggle uphill, hearing more distinctly the whir of a helicopter in the distance, feeling the stitch burning fierce in her side, the low branches and brambles catching at her as the trees become smaller, newer, and the forest turns to scrub on the flat land of the plateau.

This is unexpected. The trees have been cleared, a hazard she had anticipated; but some time ago, and the new growth has not been managed. So she is not exposed as she had feared, but she is slowed down, reduced to walking pace as she pushes through the dense brush. Her pursuers are still moving at speed, and she can hear the dogs now, and the shouts of the men.

Strangely it is the helicopter she fears most, and she scans the sky. Its endless unbordered space should panic her, but instead the blue immensity overhead fills her with a strange, wild joy. She marshals it. There is no time yet to explore this feeling, and if she is captured the time will never come again. No sight of the helicopter, and its sound has become distant: it must be at its apogee as it circles the forest. For a moment she marvels at her luck, and wonders that it is not tracking the movements of her pursuers, as they are tracking her. The others must not all have been rounded up yet, she thinks, and hope surges in her. Again, she damps the emotion down. She is the only one who has any real chance, and that will be dashed in minutes if the helicopter is called in before she reaches her destination.

Which it will be the moment they realise where she has led them. She can clearly hear the other sound she had been straining for. It was a distant murmur as she came out of the trees, then a growing grumble as she pushed and strained through the dense growth, and now a rushing, tumbling roar as the bracken releases her and she stumbles out onto a narrow, grassy ledge.

She peers over the edge, down into the gorge that falls away a short stride from where she stands, then to the right and up to where the river pours out of the mountain far above her head, crashing into a valley as far again below her feet. White mist and water spray billow up to meet her. The cleft is narrow, a vein of softer rock scoured away over eons. On both sides the walls are nearly vertical, broken here and there by solitary trees that colonise the few ledges and point up at her like spears. As she leans over, the waterfall’s turbulence buffets her, wetting her face as though with tears.

No one is there to meet her. A mountain climber with ropes and anchors might hope to abseil down the side of the cliff; she has neither the skill nor the equipment. White water boils at the base of the drop, and she feels panic rising up into her throat. She takes a deep breath, then another and another, and casts a last look up at the deepening blue of the evening sky. Then she fixes her eyes down the long plunge into the gorge.

A moment later the tracking team bursts out of the forest and into the sticky embrace of the scrubland. The leader hears the faint thunder of the waterfall, checks her map and swears. She screams into her earset.

Within seconds the roar of the helicopter rivals that of the river as it heaves into view. By the time the trackers and dogs force their way through the undergrowth and onto the ledge, it is hovering above the gorge, swaying a bit in the updraughts, staying high to avoid the steep walls and buffeting currents. Its rotors almost span the width of the crevice. Retrieval specialists in orange safety suits hang out of the door, sweeping the gap with binoculars. Even from a distance their body language signals disappointment.

The air team leader spots his counterpart standing on the edge of the abyss and pulls himself back inside. She knows what he will say before her comlink crackles with the news.

The girl is gone.

The headache bloomed before Gaela’s eyes, a violence of reds and violets. Her knees jellied as turbulent, aggressive colours pulsed in time to the pounding in her skull. She’d felt it coming on as she left the museum, had gulped some painkillers and hoped she’d caught it early enough to at least stave off the florid accompaniment. No such luck. The meds should kick in soon, but for now she felt buried under waves of pain and almostpurple.

She often wondered what norms – or even other gems – would call her colours, and knew she would never have the answer. Hyperspectral vision coupled to an unimpaired intellect was a rarity, and hyperspectral synaesthesia was, as far as she knew, unique. She could have done without the distinction. She struggled endlessly to describe hues no one else could see.

Today they were intense enough to interfere with her carefully modulated perception of her surroundings, and she stumbled and stopped, eyes half closed. The street was lined with old, faceless buildings hard up against the pavement and she leaned against one of them gratefully. The migraine was not exactly a surprise. She’d known the likely outcome of the day’s task, a hurried evaluation of a massive private collection. The paintings were rumoured to include old masters, even some Renaissance work, but the museum had had its doubts. It was only at the last moment that someone had thought to request Gaela’s services.

Now they had a treasure trove of lost masterpieces, awaiting painstaking analysis of the ancient underdrawings, corrections and layers of paint by highly trained specialists wielding delicate instruments that could reveal to norm eyes what Gaela had seen in an instant. After hours spent checking dozens of canvases, trying to describe her findings in terms the others could understand, she had a headache. And, she reminded herself, payment and the prospect of more work. It was still far better than other things she’d had to do for a living.

But it had been an exhausting day and the early winter evening had long since deepened into night. At least there was no one around; she always chose her route carefully, preferring quiet streets where there was less passive surveillance to avoid, she was less likely to be accosted, and the visual bombardment would be less severe. She should be able to wait, unmolested, for the doublebarrelled barrage to recede.

She tipped her head back to rest against the cool masonry and gazed up at the sky. Even to her it was largely blank, washed out by the city’s glow. Peaceful. She picked out gentle rays of ultraviolet, followed them up until she could make out a few stars. She stood in the shadow of the wall and watched them wheel slowly overhead, letting her eyes rest in the invisible light, until the pain diminished to a spatter of lavender. Her earset buzzed.

‘Where are you?’ Bal, worried. She’d told him about the paintings and that she’d be late, and messaged him as she was leaving. Still, she should have been home long since. She could picture him resisting the urge to call, wanting to trust that the Declaration would keep her safe, finding things to do around the flat to distract himself, and finally grabbing his tablet in an excess of anxiety. It gave her a warm feeling.

‘Almost home.’ She swung away from the wall. ‘I had to stop for a while. Headache.’

‘You all right? Want me to come and get you?’

‘No, it’s okay. I’m feeling a bit better. Should be there in fifteen minutes or so.’

‘Dinner’s ready.’ The warm feeling spread. She could feel herself smiling, a huge happy grin that pushed the headache all the way back.

‘Great. I’m starving.’

She flicked off and picked up the pace, still smiling. Bal: what a treasure. A gem in the literal sense, a godsend if you believed in god. She remembered how they’d met, when she was still a runaway staying barely a step ahead of the Bel’Natur retrieval squads and he a newly arrived refugee from the Himalayan mines. He’d used the chaos of the transit camp to keep her safe, and she’d kept the cash coming in. Once the danger of forced repatriation and indenture had passed, they had ventured out into the city and found a new home in the Squats. For a long time their nascent community had been barely noticeable, a tiny tract of alien territory carved out of the heart of London. Now it was exploding, as gems flooded in on the back of the Declaration.

She crossed the broad, brightly lit avenue that separated the back streets of the financial district from buzzier clubs and cafés, barely noticing herself twisting and angling to slip unregistered between infrared camera beams and traffic monitors. The Declaration might have brought with it a new sense of security, but with scarcely a week gone by it still felt too tenuous for her to give up the old habit. The strange, dancing gait drew a few puzzled looks, which Gaela ignored. Gems were expected to be weird. In an open, populated place like this, with her hair uncovered and no companion, a touch of harmlessly off-putting eccentricity was useful. She sidestepped between a couple waiting for a table – who politely, pointedly looked away – and the perimeter of the sweeper field in front of the neighbouring jewellery shop, and plunged into the network of alleys that ran down towards the river.

The boutiques and bistros ended abruptly. There was less surveillance now, and she walked more or less normally. Little light penetrated these narrow streets, but she was using night vision, seeing as a cat sees, navigating easily around obstacles, on the lookout for lurkers in the shadows. From a hundred yards away she spotted a couple grappling with each other, hands pulling at belts and britches as they crammed themselves into the angle of a doorway. Gaela blinked at the telltale glow, not unlike her own, as one of them fell to his knees. She looked for a similar glimmer from his partner, couldn’t find it. She hesitated a moment, then turned off into an adjacent lane.

So one was a gem and the other not, unless his gemsign was well hidden. None of her business. Such liaisons – relationships even – weren’t unheard of. Now that the Declaration had confirmed a universal humanity, there would inevitably be more. And if it was a business transaction, well, most gems had few choices. Still, it made her uncomfortable. This was not yet a safe place for a gem to linger, still less to leave himself so vulnerable.

The lane she was in ran directly towards the Squats, but she changed course again to avoid a motion sensor, the infrared beam as clear to her as a red rope stretched across her path. The authorities were evidently trying to monitor the numbers moving into the inner-city colony of the radically altered.

Worry sparked in her, coupled with a deep-seated resentment of the endless, obsessive data-gathering. There were a lot of very good reasons for newly liberated, often baffled and disorientated gems to band together; but they were in effect corralling themselves, the more easily to be counted and catalogued. Social services had been at pains to reassure them that the information would only ever be used for their benefit. The department liaison was committed, kind and clearly believed what she said to be true. Gaela wished she shared her confidence.

She came out onto another main road, as broad as the avenue she’d crossed earlier but dim and deserted, its surface pitted with age. A damp, stickily cold mist rolled up from the quayside, diffusing the glow from a few ancient streetlamps. Blocky, rectilinear buildings rose in front of her, lights twinkling from very few windows. Still, more than there had been even last night.

She glanced further up the road to where the old leisure centre squatted, dark at this late hour. Bal would have been in there today, working with the others to welcome and settle the newcomers while around them the building was slowly brought back to life. It had been the hub of a desirable area once, a development of modern apartments and communal gardens running down to the river and a short walk from offices, shops and entertainment. People had flocked to live one atop the other, competing to claim a place in the heart of the city.

Then the Syndrome rolled through like a decades-long tsunami and the survivors, disheartened by the echoing solitude of so many empty homes, dispersed into the more spacious suburbs that ringed the centre. Plans had occasionally been floated to demolish the old apartment buildings, reclaim the riverside, but for so long there had been so little money, so few people and so much else to salvage that it had become an endlessly deferred project.

Now the gems were moving in.

Gaela angled across the crumbling boulevard, aiming for the dark mouth of a side street that wound into the heart of the Squats. Even this close to home she was scanning through the electromagnetic spectra, her senses alert for any new intrusions.

Still, she might have missed the ragged bundle, tucked away as it was amongst the litter that had collected behind a grubby metal drawbox poking up from the pavement, stuffed with live cables that made it glow brightly in her specialised sight. It was a sound that made her look around: a querulous little whimper. She noticed the bundle, focused on the heat signature within, and stopped dead.

The bundle stirred, the sounds becoming more urgent and distressed as it tried to sit up. Gaela moved over to crouch in front of it, shocked to the core. She reached out, thought she should say something, found herself almost unable to speak. Her voice shook.

‘Hang … hang on, take it easy, let me help.’

She pulled away the muffling layers as what was trapped inside them scrabbled frantically to get out, trying to be gentle and reassuring even as she caught the fringe of panic, even as a rage beyond anything she could remember rose like bile in her throat.

‘Easy, easy … okay … there. You’re all right, it’s all right. Don’t be scared. You’re okay.’

But it was not okay, and she knew it as well as the little boy who emerged from the windings of blanket and binbags and looked around at the dismal street, the dirty crevice and the strange woman with glowing red hair and began to cry.



Eli sensed someone settle into the seat opposite, but didn’t immediately look up. The train was pulling away from the platform, gathering speed for the final leg of the journey, and he supposed this traveller had just boarded. Some hint of perfume or whiff of pheromone told him it was a woman. That she had chosen a seat at an occupied table when the carriage was largely empty was, to say the least, annoying.

Eli was juggling two tablets, re-reading the Conference brief and his own draft analysis on one, writing notes on the other. He shifted his feet out of the intruder’s way and glanced up, intending only a brief nod, just enough to convey a touch of irritation and forestall any attempt at fellow-passenger small talk.

The woman was staring at him.

Her face was striking. Black-dark eyes took him in over sharply angled cheekbones, red lips and a cut-glass jaw. The hair was swept back, glossy and blonde. She was tall; he thought that when she stood she would be almost his height. She lounged against the mass-transit upholstery with the easy, powerful poise of an athlete, and was simply but expensively dressed. Her black coat would have set him back a month’s salary at least; her tiny earset coil was crystalline and almost invisible. He could not have hazarded a guess at her age.

The woman regarded him without expression. He thought her appraisal was intended to discomfort, and had to suppress the urge to shuffle his feet under the table while he parsed his new companion’s face. He was certain he’d never seen her before, would have remembered such harsh beauty, but he couldn’t shake a sense of familiarity: as though he ought to know who she was.

Looking away was impossible. The woman had created an intimacy with her stare, had taken over his space and captured his attention without a word. Eli was unnerved. He felt a need to respond to this invasion, regain a sense of territory. He also felt, instinctively, that if he spoke first he would be at a disadvantage.

He took refuge in props, his left hand holding the tablet he’d been reading at an angle which ensured only he could see its surface. He flicked the other into standby, shielding his notes from view. He left it lying on the table, leaned back in his seat and gazed at the woman with what he hoped was an air of composure.

She smiled for the first time, a crimson flicker that softened her jawline but went nowhere near her eyes.

‘Good afternoon, Dr Walker.’

He let a few seconds tick by, assessing who she might be, making her wait. The voice was as expensive and cultured as the clothing. Her attitude remained relaxed, as though she had all the time in the world. He thought of simply not responding, forcing her to plough on unassisted, but somehow couldn’t. He tried to muster an aura of scholarly dignity.

‘You have the advantage of me, Miss …?’ He let it trail off, inviting her to supply a name. She smiled again at the gambit, then ignored it.

‘I’ve been meaning to make your acquaintance. This seemed,’ she nodded at the tablets, ‘an opportune moment.’

He thought he saw an opening. ‘You favour interruptions?’ he asked, intending to sound irritated, wincing inwardly when it came out arch. She smiled widely at that, for an instant looking genuinely amused.

‘Not as a rule, no.’ She shifted in her seat, crossing long legs. ‘I am in a position to contribute to your research, which, I believe, you are intending to present shortly.’

‘My research.’

‘Indeed.’

‘If you’ll forgive me for saying so, you don’t appear to be a gem.’

That earned him a flash of annoyance. Her brows creased and lips twisted for a moment. Then the sculpted face smoothed out again.

‘I am not. But it seems to me, Dr Walker, that relying solely on gem-derived data fails to capture the entire picture. It will inevitably leave a gap in your findings; one might even say a flaw.’

‘I see.’ He felt surer of himself now; he thought he knew what this was about. ‘And you think you’re able to fill this … gap?’

‘I am.’ She folded her hands together on the table. They were long and strong, beautifully manicured and without adornment. It was interesting, Eli thought, how the lack of accessories could often be the signal of serious wealth. Something flickered at the back of his mind; a hint, an intimation of who this woman might be.

‘However, I’m aware that you have had similar opportunities before,’ she went on, ‘and have failed to take them up. I’m less clear on why.’

‘I’m not sure what opportunities you’re referring to.’

‘Oh come, Dr Walker. You’ve had access to the genetype reports of all the major firms. It’s well known that you’ve been selective in your focus.’

‘That’s your view, is it?’ The tablet he was holding had blanked to standby as well. He stacked it atop the other one, being careful to activate neither. ‘You’re mistaken. My team and I have reviewed all of the data from, as you say, all of the gemtechs. That we’ve declined to adopt their interpretations is down to our commitment to objectivity. We have in fact been anti-selective.’

‘Not true. You’ve chosen to ignore the conclusions of those who have a lot more experience in the field.’

‘We found their conclusions to be predetermined and selfserving.’

‘Then you haven’t been given sufficient information. I can remedy that.’

‘Who are you?’

The blunt question gave her pause. She regarded him for a moment before responding. He thought she wanted to make sure he understood the significance of the answer.

‘My name,’ said the woman, ‘is Zavcka Klist.’

He had already mentally floated a number of possibilities. This one had been the least likely, and the most impressive. Eli raised an eyebrow.

‘From Bel’Natur. I assume I should be flattered.’

‘I’m not here to flatter you, Dr Walker. I’m here to explain some things that you may be in danger of not considering fully, and to provide you with material that I think you will find compelling.’

He felt his hackles rise. This was more and more like familiar territory. The condescension, the suggestion of deep matters beyond his comprehension, the hint of a bribe. He marshalled his anger. The fact that Zavcka Klist had come in person, to catch him alone and unawares, signalled that the gemtechs were really worried. Their efforts to get him on side had become increasingly frequent and unsubtle.

He had rejected the most recent just the evening before, a slick, smooth-talking ‘businessman’ who’d set up a meeting on false pretences and spent half an hour trying to convince him that his entire approach was misguided. The man had then gone on to speculate, hypothetically of course, just how damaging such an error might be to a prominent and distinguished career, and to point out how beneficial a less uncompromising attitude could prove, before being summarily ejected from Eli’s office. It had been the third such approach in a month.

Word must have reached her. Since this most recent lobbyist had claimed to represent Recombin, it suggested that the industry’s internal espionage apparatus was functioning well. Or, he thought sourly, that they had teamed up, an enemy-of-my-enemy alliance, and sent one of their biggest hitters to bring him to heel. It was not a comfortable prospect. He wondered if she would acknowledge the incident.

‘That sounds remarkably like a proposition that was made to me yesterday.’

‘I know about the idiot from Recombin.’ She said it quickly, exasperated. ‘Your response to him was entirely understandable. What is not understandable is the notion of a new classification system for gems. There is already enough uncertainty around an appropriate, affordable social settlement. Suggesting that established designations should be revised at this point would be a mistake.’

‘My conclusions about gems are based on data, Miss Klist. Gained both from direct observation, and court order. If, as you’ve suggested, you have new information I’d be happy to consider it.’

This was tricky ground and they both knew it. The courts had long since ordered full disclosure of gemtech records, despite massive, costly and protracted opposition. Her response was careful.

‘I can provide a more detailed exploration of different behaviour modalities, based on extensive Bel’Natur research and observation,’ she said. ‘I understand that the raw statistics you’ve been working with can be … troublesome … to interpret.’

‘I haven’t found them that difficult.’

‘That’s because you haven’t understood what they represent,’ she snapped. The change of tone was startling. ‘You don’t have a comprehensive understanding of what gems are capable of – both the advantages and the risks. There are thousands of those people’ – she spat the word out as though it were bitter – ‘wandering around amongst ordinary human beings, whereabouts unknown half the time, with extraordinary capabilities and unclear intentions. They cannot simply be left alone to tuck themselves away in unmonitored enclaves as though they were all the same as each other, or the same as us. They’re not.’

‘No,’ said Eli quietly. ‘They’re not. You and your predecessors saw to that.’

She leaned forward, lips compressed, nostrils flaring. ‘We fulfilled an urgent need at the time of greatest peril for our species. We kept the human race from becoming extinct, or reverting back to some sort of medieval existence. We are the only reason any of us are here.’

‘That is undeniable. And since,’ he held up a hand to stop her cutting in, ‘since we are still here despite all the odds against us, our imperative is to have regard for all members of our species.’ He threw her a speculative look. ‘Or do you think that because you’ve changed some of them almost beyond recognition they should be removed from our consideration?’

‘The solution needs to fit the problem. Don’t misunderstand me, Dr Walker.’ Her fingers drummed the table for emphasis. ‘I don’t want their welfare to be disregarded, I don’t want them treated badly. I regret that the conduct of our industry has on occasion been less than humane. But we are where we are, and you have to understand that many – most – of the gems are simply not capable of leading a normal life. They are best suited to the environments they were engineered for, and the work they’ve been designed to do. And the point is that they can work. The social services emphasis there’s been since the Declaration is enfeebling, not empowering. Gems who are quite capable of earning a living are ending up in menial roles or becoming nonproductive wards of the state. What kind of sense does that make?’

Eli concealed his reaction with a deep breath and a thoughtful glance out of the window. He was surprised to see buildings flash past instead of fields and forests. They were well within the borders of the city, would be arriving within moments. He needed to decide how to play the rest of the conversation.

He had pissed her off with his apparent disdain for the gemtechs. Despite this she was being remarkably candid. This was surprising. Zavcka Klist’s business acumen was legendary: many observers considered her to be the real power at Bel’Natur, itself arguably the most powerful and sophisticated of the bioindustrialist conglomerates. She was not thoughtlessly having this conversation, with a ma